In general, carpet tiles conventionally used at various places such as shops and offices are cleaned on a periodic basis. As years go by, however, the carpet tiles become dirty due to mud, sand, dust, dropped or spilled drink and food, resulting in non-uniform colors and stains. In such cases, the old carpet tiles are, as a rule, replaced with new ones, and the former are discarded.
Such replacement of carpet tiles incurs high cost. Not only the cost of new carpet tiles, but also the cost of removal and disposal of the used carpet tiles. Recently, municipalities have added heavy charges for land filling of used carpet tiles.
Also, destructive recycling by, for example, grinding synthetic fiber carpet tile into small chips and using the chips as either fuel, fill, or to be re-extruded as fiber is costly and does not maximize the inherent value of the used carpet tile. Further, the disposal of used carpet tiles by incineration has recently become an environmental concern.
Many end users of modular carpet tile flooring are beginning to see the need for a recyclable or renewable product. Overall environmental awareness is increasing, as is pressure on reducing waste volume and cost to landfill. Companies which use thousands of square yards of carpet tile flooring are feeling pressure from within their companies, from their governments, and from the general public to use a product which is more “environmentally friendly”. Every year over 20,000,000 square yards of carpet tile is produced and sold in Japan alone.
The currently known processes of recycling or renewing (cleaning, retexturing) carpet tile flooring have limitations, problems or drawbacks including complexity and cost. First, completely destructively recycling carpet tile requires complex and expensive machinery and processes to separate, filter, and clean components before they are reused. Not all of these components are suitable for reuse by themselves. Many have to be combined with new material in order to create a good quality end product. This reduces the “effective” percentage of recycled materials that are ultimately used in the new product. Second, renewing conventionally patterned tile carpet, which is more often than not of only one pattern and/or color in an installation, requires complex sorting and handling work both before renewing and after renewing.
In the case of leased tile, two sets of carpet tile must be manufactured for one installation. One complete set is installed and another complete set is kept in storage. After a period of time, when the tile on the floor needs to be renewed, a “map” of the installation must be made and each tile must be manually numbered on the back as it is taken up. The map and numbering is used so that when the tile is replaced at a later date, it will be placed in the exact same place from where it was taken up. The tile must be replaced in the exact same place as it was taken up because the shade difference between tiles from different areas of the installation (from difference in wear and soiling over time) may produce an undesirable effect if they were to be placed next to each other. After peeling or taking up the first installation, the second set of tile is installed. The first set is then renewed and placed in storage until it is needed again. Thus in the case of leased tile, there are costs for handling, storage of tile, extra investment in the second set of tile, and renewal cost among others to be considered.
In the case of purchased or owned tile carpet that is to be renewed, sorting and handling is also complex. As described in U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/223,450, filed on Aug. 4, 2000, before renewing, damaged or unusable tile must be manually culled out. Then the tile must be manually sorted into lots according to the degree of wear and soiling of each tile. After renewal, a tile that has experienced a higher degree of wear and/or soiling cannot be installed next to a tile with lesser degree of wear and soiling because of the difference in shading between the tiles. Therefore, pre-sorting before renewal is required and tile must be placed into different lots that contain tile of approximately the same shade. After the renewal process, the tile must be sorted into lots again because of differences in shade caused by the renewal process itself. Because of the different lots of tile that are generated during the entire renewal process, the installation which is to receive the renewed carpet must be carefully mapped out so that different lots are not installed next to each other resulting in shade differences. This type of renewal process can lead to having an inventory with many different lots (shades) of renewed tile that cannot be easily placed into an installation and/or very small lots that cannot be sold. Thus in the case of renewing purchased or owned tile carpet, there are costs for manually sorting both before and after renewal, cost of keeping inventory, and renewal cost among others to be considered.
Hence, there is a need for an improved method or process of patterning, installing, renewing, and/or recycling carpet tiles and the like.